4 Responses to “PJ4C – Bonaire 2012”

We are now a few days from departure and all the team is very enthusiastic.

In mid-December around 600Kg of equipment has left Europe to Bonaire, Peter PJ4NX will take care of it until our arrival.

Jeff F6AOJ has repaired equipment damaged in TJ9PF last year, Mat F5PED has prepared the 30m 4sq, and Yann F1NGP has configured all the computer network.

Thanks to all the F6KOP team everything has been prepared and packed on time. Eric ON7RN and Peter PJ4NX have organized everything with the shipper.

We will use the following equipment :

5x FT 450

1x ICOM IC7200 & 7000

1x K3

6x ACOM 1010

1x 50 MHz PA

4x SPIDERBEAM 5 BANDS

1x SPIDER 3 BANDS

1x SPIDERBEAM WARC

1x 5ELEMENT 50 MHz I0JXX

1x VERTICAL 20m

1x FOUR SQUARE 30m

1x FOUR SQUARE 40m

2x VERTICALS 80 (CW and SSB)

1x VERTICAL 40m

1x L 160m

BEVERAGES

We have also in-band filters for 80 and 75m simultaneous operation. Jean Paul F8BJI made the operating schedules. The 7th station will be used on 6m (sometimes as a beacon on 50.104MHz, please let us know is there are any openings)

Departure is scheduled from Paris January 12, 2012 morning, arrival in Bonaire late in the evening.

We would like to thanks our sponsors for their help. Of course you could help us to cover the expense for shipping all equipment, even small contributions are very appreciated, you could use paypal on our web site or send an email to f6eno@wanadoo.fr .

All equipment is installed except the second antenna for 80m, but it will be soon.

Last night they had some difficulties with HF disturbing computers on 160m, that’s why they sometimes disapear, it is now fixed.

We also have many difficulties with HK0NA pileups for 2 reasons : 1)they were not supposed to be active now, so we did not arranged qrg with them befor departure 2) people do not understand CW and spot wrong calls on the cluster.

So from today we change all *.024 qrg to *.018 on CW. We have also asked the ops to give their callsign every qso to prevent any mistake.

Logs are uploaded real time on clublog for CW and SSB. The RTTY qso are uploaded manually 1 or 2 times per day.

If you are not in the log please work us again. If you cannot, send an email to the qsl manager AFTER the expedition.

Everything is going fine, Bonaire is a nice place, and ops have a lot’s of pleasure to work you !

Wondered if you are scuba diving while on Bonaire. My wife and I are avid divers and are cosidering a trip later this spring. Wondered if you might share your thoughts about diving the various reefs. Thanks and 73’s – Dave